Afghanistan could go dark as power bills remain unpaid

[Klaralven]

Afghanistan’s state power company has appealed to a United Nations-led mission to give $90 million to settle unpaid bills to Central Asian suppliers before electricity gets cut off for the country given that the three-month deadline for payments has passed.

Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan from mid-August, electricity bills haven’t been paid to neighboring countries that supply about 78% of its power needs. This poses another problem for a new government that is grappling with a cash crunch in the economy in part due to U.S. and other allies freezing the country’s overseas reserves.

Afghanistan usually pays $20 million to $25 million a month in total to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Iran and now upaid bills stand at $62 million, Safiullah Ahmadzai, the acting CEO of Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat, said on Wednesday. These countries may cut the power supply “any day they want,” he added.

“We’ve asked the UNAMA in Kabul to assist the people of Afghanistan to pay the country’s power suppliers as part of their humanitarian aid,” Ahmadzai said by phone, referring to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. He said some $90 million was requested from the mission as the unpaid bills will jump to about $85 million in a week.

The UN mission hasn’t responded to that request yet, Ahmadzai said.

Currently, there’s no significant power cuts now in Kabul or elsewhere in Afghanistan. Ahmadzai said just 38% of Afghanistan’s 38 million people currently have access to electricity.

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/10/6/afghanistan-stares-at-power-outage-as-bills-remain-unpaid

[FloridaBlues]

1. I guess they really miss American money coming in to help them.

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. Huh...

Who could have known?

A totalitarian, fundamentalist group of religious extremists living in the 12th century take over a country and have problems paying electric bills.

Well I never…..

[FakeNoose]

3. Why don't they pay heir bills with heroin?

[Retrograde]

4. Winning is easy, governing is hard

I feel that's a quote from somewhere...

Anyway, they broke it, they bought it

[GulfCoast66]

5. 38% of their people have access to power. That explains everything.

Why did the Taliban walk into power? Because a majority of the nation agrees with their beliefs.

I’ve known for years we would come to naught there. Because most people in Afghanistan are totally down with the middle age rules the Taliban represent. Despite a city like Kabul where educated people fled. The rubes know nothing else. God or Allah and all.

We are seeing the same thing here now on a less brutal scale in the red states in America. In every red state there are cities full of Democratic voters that are often a great majority in that city. Take Texas. Austin, Houston, San Antonio. And so forth. But they are overwhelmed by the rural rubes.

Yeah, our rubes are not as bad as the Taliban. But give them time….